13 killed as bus falls into gorge in Kashmir
Srinagar, India - Thirteen people were killed on Saturday when a passenger bus fell 70m down a gorge in Jammu and Kashmir, police officials said.
The accident occurred as the bus carrying 26 passengers was negotiating a sharp turn on a narrow road in the mountains of Poonch, some 200km south of Srinagar, the state’s capital, senior superintendent of police Rajiv Pandey said.
“Thirteen died in the acci- dent and the rest were injured,” Pandey said, adding three critically injured passengers were evacuated by air to a hospital in the city of Jammu.
Careless driving and bad, narrow and winding roads in the mountainous territory cause frequent accidents with passenger vehicles often slipping into deep gorges.
In India an average of 150,000 people die in road accidents each year.